According to the draft guidelines, "The main objective of the guidelines is to assist Parties in developing efficient and effective tax and price policies that meet their needs in terms of reducing tobacco consumption and prevalence, bearing in mind the significance of revenues gained from taxes on tobacco products."

The goals of the policy prescriptions are quite lofty, but any action by the WHO will lack the teeth to enforce them — the transnational organization may be allowed to prescribe recommendations, but it does not have the power to enforces taxes upon sovereign nations.

This means that their advice could easily fall on deaf ears — but they don't have to.

Many of the recommendations are too vague, and some states do not have the resources to enact or analyze the effect of tobacco taxes. And some don't want to, which is their sovereign right.

Here's one example. The draft guidelines note:

Parties should implement the simplest and most efficient system that meets their health and fiscal needs, with the fewest exceptions and taking into account their national circumstances.

This advice does not give specific policy recommendations for a specific state. The tools to combat or consider "national circumstances" differ widely according to each specific situation. Further, not all states will have the same capacity to enact taxes or to analyze and work around their circumstances.

However, this specific recommendation adds:

From a budgetary as well as a health point of view, Parties should implement specific or mixed excise systems with a minimum specific tax floor, as these systems have considerable advantages over purely ad valorem systems

This provides a more specific policy analysis, but as noted before, not all states have the resources or the time to combat this.

Patrick Reynolds, executive director of the Foundation for a Smokefree America, told Business Insider that he thought the discussion was "wonderful" and "exciting."

"To say that all taxes are generally bad is foolish," Reynolds, who is the grandson of cigarette company founder RJ Reynolds, added. "Tobacco taxes means less smoking and savings on long term healthcare costs."

In an op-ed with USA Today on Wednesday, Reynolds noted, after a 62¢ federal tobacco tax increase enacted in 2009 caused cigarette sales to drop 11 percent in the first 12 months, and raised more than $10 billion in the first year.

Not all support cigarette taxes, and they have their own data to back their claims.

David Sutton, a spokesperson for the Altria Group — the parent company for some of the biggest tobacco manufacturers in the United States — responded to Business Insider via email. Here's what they had to say:

"Tobacco products are already very heavily taxed. Since 2000, federal and state governments increased cigarette excise taxes over 110 times, more than doubling the price of a pack of cigarettes. Philip Morris USA opposes tobacco product excise tax increases that are unfair to adult tobacco consumers, create additional incentives for contraband and counterfeit tobacco product trafficking, harm states by increasing incentives for adult tobacco consumers to buy tobacco products through lower-tax or untaxed revenues, are costly to legitimate businesses, including retailers and wholesalers, do little to solve systemic state budget problems and can lead to less stability in the states’ finances."

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There's a rebuttal I'd like to make to the study you mentioned showing that higher tobacco taxes do not reduce smoking rates of low income smokers.

In fact, there are numerous credible studies previous to the one you cited which show that higher tobacco taxes do reduce smoking rates. (See the url from the Campaign for Tobaccofree Kids at bottom.)

It would make sense to use part of the increased tobacco revenues to make resources available to low income smokers to help them quit. The medical costs of smoking are estimated at $10 per pack sold, and we all share the burden of that.

Your article cynically quotes the UN WHO's global treaty on tobacco control verbatim, with clear disdain for the complex and "vague" language of the diplomats who participated in writing it. To better clarify the treaty, here's a web page from the Campaign for Tobaccofree Kids which will make it easily understandable for your readers: http://global.tobaccofreekids.org/en/solutions/tobacco_treaty

Regarding higher tobacco taxes hurting the poor, in my USA TODAY editorial "The case for tobacco taxes," linked to in your article, I point out, "Obviously, tobacco executives don't want tobacco tax increases, because they know they work. One argument they make is that tobacco taxes are regressive — that the burden unfairly falls on low-income smokers. That's chutzpah. The cigarette companies, having targeted low-income Americans and addicted them to tobacco, now argue that a tax increase on their cigarettes is unfair to the poor.

"What's truly regressive is smoking itself. Lower-income communities suffer disproportionately from smoking and tobacco illnesses. If public policies can help poorer Americans to quit, those regressive harms and costs are reduced. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids says the savings for a pack-a-day smoker who quits is profoundly significant, with savings ranging from $1,000 to $2,300 annually, depending on the state. After seeing the powerful result of the federal tobacco tax increase, elected officials should support higher tobacco taxes."

Obama has done more than any US President to date to bring Big Tobacco to heel. On his 17th day in office, he signed into law the 62 cent Federal tobacco tax hike, while Bush had vetoed the same tax twice.

In his sixth month in office, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration got regulatory authority over tobacco; during the Bush Administration, the same bill had been killed in committee four years in a row by the Republican leadership.

In addition, Obama gave us health care reform with expanded insurance coverage for tobacco cessation, and an unprecedented multi-million dollar ad campaign is raising awareness of the health risks of tobacco and guiding people interested in quitting to a toll-free help line.

We live in an age of complex problems. Complex problems require complex solutions, but most people don't have the time to look deeply into the issues, and want a simpler way to understand them.

People are vulnerable to the oversimplified solutions offered by conservatives, who often insist that a simplistic approach of less government, less regulation and no new taxes will make things better.

Blind adherence to an oversimplistic ideology is dangerous. Complex problems require complex, case-by-case pragmatic solutions. I'm proud that seventeen days after President Obama took office, he signed a 62 cent Federal tobacco tax hike into law. Some taxes are good, and this reality gives the lie to the ideology of the Right.

As already mentioned, higher prices on tobacco immediately reduced teen smoking by 10% to 13%, and by now there are now 3 million fewer smokers in the US. The tobacco tax brought in $10 billion in its first year alone, and cigarette sales have declined by 11% since the tax went into effect. With less smoking, the nation will save billions on future health care costs.

Yet many Republicans in Congress repeatedly voted against the tobacco tax, and President Bush vetoed it twice, blindly sticking with their ideology that taxes are just plain bad. It may be no accident that one of the largest donors to the Republican Party was Big Tobacco, which even now gives 80% of its political contributions to Republican candidates and PACs.

As to regulation, under Bush, FDA regulation of tobacco was repeatedly killed in committee, even though it appeared obvious to many that tobacco should finally be regulated by the FDA, and not continue to be managed by the old Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco. Obama and the Democratic Congress passed a bill for FDA regulation of tobacco in June of Obama's first year in office, but during the Bush years, the same bill was killed in committee four years in a row by Republican leaders.

Under Obama, Congress also passed health care reform which meant expanded insurance coverage for tobacco cessation, and an unprecedented ad campaign raised awareness of the health risks of tobacco and guided people interested in quitting to a toll-free help line.

Democrats also want new taxes on the oil industry and only the wealthiest Americans; the latter would have brought close to a trillion dollars in new revenue over 10 years. What happened? Republicans adhered blindly to their ideology that taxes are bad, and have protected the wealthy.

The Democrats' strategy may be a tougher sell to the public because it's a more complex one. But the Democrats clearly have a more carefully considered approach to government, and address problems in their full complexity. They look for pragmatic, case-by-case solutions to problems, while many Republicans blindly adhere to their too-simple ideology.

That oversimplified approach to government will prove dangerous to our nation and lead to mediocre government at a time when we need great government. In my opinion, in November voters need to give Obama a Democratic majority in both houses, for the sake of our shared future.

Here's a link to a report on tobacco taxes from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in Washington DC: